


For Good

by moroder



Category: Slime Rancher (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mild Drama, POV Second Person, implications about Viktor's past, something's happening to the Range
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 22:18:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20217184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moroder/pseuds/moroder
Summary: Here, you thought, everything would be all right. No dubious plans, no harm done for anyone.





	For Good

**Author's Note:**

> I am sorry I was greatly annoyed with lack of at least mildly dark content on Slime Rancher so I wrote it myself  
the idea of something lurking under the Ruins/the Desert was eating on me for a while already

When your head goes buzzing from research, you distract yourself and think about something distant and not related to slime science. You remember your childhood years that you spent far away from here, in a small warm climate town that sometimes experienced twice or thrice as much snow in wintertime despite super precise weather forecasts. You soon became interested in the reason of this. It was why you decided way back in your childhood that you wanted to explore the world.

It was hard at the start. But your parents were very supportive, and you knew a lot of useful stuff as you turned fourteen. Your few friends liked you for being able to invent and build almost anything. Sometimes, as bitterness took over you at nights, you thought them to like you only for your inventing talent.

One day, one of them came to you with an odd suggestion. He brought something pulsating, bright orange, like an octahedron made of lava in his backpack. He added how slick he was, stealing a Boom plort from his father, and that he probably hadn't have even noticed it, as the Boom plorts were not that expensive on market this week. That day, you learned about slimes, Far, Far Range and mysterious plorts that could only be produced on the slimes’ home planet.

That boy was just a year younger than you were. He told you about his sneaky plans in conspiracy tone. There was some bully at his school, annoying him and some other guys you didn’t know. The boy really looked up to you as being a specialist in building just anything. He even brought you a real Boom plort to design something explosive and teach that bully a lesson.

You declined immediately. Just as you heard about building something dangerous and apparently with a purpose of hurting others. You told him science had to be used for good. Big words for a fifteen years old kid!

The boy was utterly upset by your refuse. He talked something about destroyed friendship, about you unwilling to understand him. And you just shrugged, because what could a school bully do to anyone, steal their lunch?

Later at the prom, as he beat your former friend almost to death because of “general dislike”, you understood. You’ve never seen your friends and that bully again, but the bloodied battered face of the plort-stealing boy had stayed with you forever since.

* * *

There were no bullies and conflicts in Far, Far Range, there was only 7Zee Corporation that sent explorers safe and well to a new world, charging a moderate fee. You have spent several years researching plorts in your university; however, as your professors said all as one that your knowledge would blossom in the slimes’ homeland, you have decided. Here, you thought, everything would be all right. No dubious plans, no harm done for anyone. Slimes eyed you with delight and surprise, seeing a new human being. They made funny noises. First time in what felt like forever, you knew your efforts down here would give only positive results.

You had almost no time to travel around, and you knew the territory a lot worse than preferable. As you got an idea to recreate the Far, Far Range and its inhabitants by means of virtual reality, the Corporation gave you a hand by building an underwater workshop, and you were rarely leaving it since. Besides, you could always ask your neighbors for required slimes over the exchange. You have never considered yourself a good traveler and had a great deal of doubt whether you would’ve survived your first week in Far, Far Range if not for 7Zee’s advanced support. That’s why you preferred to stay home and hope for your neighbors to become interested in today’s exchange offer.

You have lost track of time living on this weird planet, so you didn’t know exactly when another living soul came down there. She replaced the man you have met once and whose interest in slime science you've influenced. Beatrix enchanted you with her vitality. Only two months have passed, and she had already travelled farther than you had in years. She told you stories about a portal to another world in Ancient Ruins, how she activated it and accessed a place where the ground exploded with pillars of fire, and slimes hid in sand, barely sticking their non-existent noses outside. You remembered a place called the Glass Desert existed, but travelers rarely visited it, and the last time it happened, it was disappeared Twillgers.

Beatrix, however, didn’t vanish upon entering the portal, so you held onto a chance to explore the unusual and rare. Her stories about the fire geysers and Desert ruins covered with silk sand sounded so exciting that you had to admit unwillingly your desire to set off travelling was growing. Beatrix would cover you in case of danger, right?.. But you were never sure.

* * *

She told you not only about the ruins of an ancient civilization. Over time, as you grew closer, she started mentioning things that went way outside the image of a peaceful blooming planet. The first time she started the talk, it was after she brought you Quantum slimes, and you noticed how unusually tense she was.

She asked you to stop requesting slimes from Ruins and the Desert. She lamented about a bad feeling, said that she would never stick her nose there ever again. You saw how hard it was for her to say something like this, knowing how curious she was for everything to just cut herself from interesting parts of world. So you consoled her awkwardly, promising it will be all right.

Partially it was your fault that she hadn’t quit it back then.

If you had held her, she wouldn’t have put herself in danger again. But your bright mind came with an idea to send Beatrix to the Glass Desert for one last time, grab some rare slimes and never come back to the danger zone again. You knew she would do her best to execute your requests.

You didn’t know, however, that Beatrix wouldn’t return the next day, the day after, and even after a whole week.

It made you tear yourself away from the lab table and visit her ranch. All drones went offline without water and hungry slimes tried to chomp a piece off you, but you managed to get to Beatrix’ house. She always said that she wasn’t locking the door because any guests would be welcome. However, the house was empty, just like the grotto and the docks decorated with stone circles.

All voicemail was also left waiting for someone to listen. You contemplated it for a minute and called Thora West – she would give you an advice for practically anything. You were surprised to see Hobson Twillgers on the call screen, but it wasn’t the subject to think about now, and you told him the worries Beatrix had shortly before disappearing. Hobson shook his head and said that he, too, was afraid that something would come from under the Ruins and devour everything. It sounded ridiculous, but you saw his terrified face expression – just like Beatrix the last time you saw her. So you believed him.

* * *

You spent a lot of sleepless nights trying to squeeze more blowing up power from Boom plorts and make them even more harmful than overfed Boom Gordos. For all previous years, you have only used slime science for peaceful research. It was hard to restructure your mindset, but you lacked an alternative.

You knew that it was almost at the door. Almost knocking on your underwater lab with its glassy mosaic appendages. You would give anything to stop seeing thousands of them erupting from the creature’s womb and enveloping your mind in your sleep. But after you’ve seen one tenth of its size, you could no longer get rid of its despicably glasslike image, spreading itself, filling everything.

Maybe communication in Far, Far Range still worked, but you abandoned your attempts to contact anyone: it only took valuable time. Everyone you could contact was either dead or evacuated. The last one you saw was Hobson; he called you as they were leaving the planet with Thora, inviting you to join them. They didn’t have a spare place, but they would try and arrange it somehow. Anything to pull you out safe and well.

You declined their suggestion. Hobson wasn't surprised. He already knew how stubborn you could be when the situation got sour.

You move your goggles up the forehead and wipe your unseeing tired eyes. The short portions of time you used to fall unconscious were obviously not enough to rest. But you felt that you will either fall asleep forever or work harder to sleep peacefully later. It was all a matter of time and effort.

A heavy impact resonates through the walls; glass is cracking. You see one of the nasty appendages, pointed at the center of the previous blow. Another hit – and the outer layer of high impact glass is penetrated.

You dart off, feeling with your whole body how your underwater shelter is slowly encapsulated by the monster. It’s working slowly, knowing you have nowhere to go. You weren’t sitting here all this time for nothing, while everyone else escaped or accepted their fate.

It seemed like the creature could just descend on the laboratory and break it through with its masses. But it wasn’t enough, so the beast tried to break in.

As two glittering tentacles punched through the second layer of porthole glass, you were ready. You stare at the adversary, not blinking, tightly gripping the device you’ve spent so many sleepless nights and your sanity on. The tentacle stretches out for you, dripping thick Slime Sea water on the floor.

You suddenly remember your old school friend. The one who was brought to intensive care in the middle of the prom. You were trying to justify your decline of building a harmful device for him. You blamed yourself for what happened, when in fact it was the bully’s fault, not yours.

What did you tell him upon declining, huh? Something very righteous.

You grip the lever on your device; the machine is too heavy for you to hold for a long time. Its opening, pointed at the monster’s tentacles, is so hot you can barely stand the heat.

You always told the truth. And this time, no one would’ve blamed you for lying.

“Science,” you whisper, “should be used for good.”

Then you pull the lever.


End file.
